TO SHARE WITH YOU, compliments of ThinkShop

IS THIS YOU?

• you want to monitor how much your students knowledge of thinking skills increases from year to year
• you need hard data and graphs
• your staff are teaching thinking tools and strategies: e.g.
  • Six hats
  • Bloom's Taxonomy
  • PMI
  • Venn diagrams
  • flowcharts
  • Graphic Thinkers

IF THE ANSWER IS YES: then feel free to use SWATS

Download the PDF for the SWATS test
and
Download the Student Answer Sheet

View feedback on SWATS - ideas for use from other teachers who have used it!

WHAT IS THE REASONING BEHIND SWATS?
I've been working for quite a while now on designing a way of assessing students' thinking skills, and recording some kind of progress across the school. Tricky. After much research and trialling and refining, SWATS is the result to date. It's a work in progress, and I'd be happy for you to use it if you're willing to share with me any suggestions for improvement and also let me know if the results are proving their worth to you and your school!

WHAT is the PURPOSE of SWATS?

• SWATS is designed to measure students' KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING of thinking tools across the year
• Results are for teachers and administrators to inform practice for the year
• Can be given as a Pretest at the start of year one, then at the beginning of every year after that for comparative analysis
• Results can be easily tallied and graphed
• Designed so that younger students can have the test administered verbally by an older "buddy"
• Results can be analysed for scoring purely on Six Hats, and/or on Bloom's and thinking strategies (PMI, Venn diagram, flowchart)

It is not designed to measure HOW students are applying those tools in their schoolwork; once the test data shows strengths and weaknesses in thinking tools and strategies, then teachers can assess how well students are applying the thinking tools during daily schoolwork and performances of understanding. I hope SWATS will help schools whose teachers are keen on implementing a school-wide thinking-skills-development programme*.

I'd especially like to thank Chris Gladstone of St Joseph's School in Nelson, for bouncing ideas around and for her enthusiastic help in tweaking and testing SWATS at St Joseph's Catholic School in Nelson.

* For a Scope and Sequence chart for years 1-13, see"How To Teach Thinking Skills" pages 112-113, available from ThinkShop.

HERE IT IS: click here to download the PDF
And please remember to send me feedback!
And yes, you're welcome to hand out copies as long as you acknowledge the source.

Best regards,
JEAN and the team at ThinkShop